This is my 22nd year as president of Asahi Kasei. I suppose there are not many people who have been president of a company as long as I have, not just in the textile industry but in any listed company.Having been president for a long time is nothing to brag about. In truth I've just been doing my best to strengthen the business and 22 years went by before I realized it.
Recently, every time my term of office approaches its end, newspapers, magazines, and others have fun speculating whether I'm staying or going, and who my successor may be. This is the media’s job, so it can't be avoided, but the writers have never done personnel affairs, so I often feel "They have ho idea how it really is." Given the opportunity, I would like to write specifically about how to decide personnel affairs, including the question of my successor, but now is not the time.
After writing "My Personal History" I plan to keep devoting myself to my duties and give my all for the development of the company. Luckily, my willpower and physical strength are still very much intact. I had a thorough physical checkup recently, and the results showed "nothing abnormal." Most of all, I am grateful for being blessed with good health.
I was born on April 19, 1909 in Yamada-mura, Minamitakagi-gun, Nagasaki Prefecture (currently Azuma-cho). I turn 74 this year.
Yamada was a village on the Ariake Sea side of the Shimabara Peninsula at the foot of Mount Unzen, about 20 minutes from Isahaya-shi by train. The population was around 5,000 back then. The climate is mild and it almost never snows in the winter. The people there were simple and rustic, and very kind.
My father's name was Matsunosuke, and he was well versed in the Chinese classics. He never graduated from the highest academic institution, but read through all kinds of Chinese texts by himself and pursued his studies through his own efforts. That might be why he raised his children with extremely strict discipline, saying "Study extensively and live for the world and other people."
He enjoyed looking after others and actively took the lead whenever there was a festival or event in the village. He also mediated quite a few disputes, and I remember seeing different people came to consult my father. He said that our ancestors were samurai, and he was likewise a proud man and somewhat a self-styled humanitarian.
My father was no good at earning money, but since my mother Sue was the daughter of a landowner in a neighboring village, we had some fields and were able to lead a normal life even though we were not wealthy.
My mother was a wonderful person who took good care of my father, despite his difficult side. A feudalistic ethos still existed back then, so if my mother were to walk past our pillows as we slept, my father would yell "A woman shouldn't pass above a man's head!"
When bathing, it was my father first, then us children, and always my mother last. I doubt young people today can really imagine this, but that was the way things were back then. My mother never complained, obeyed my father, and raised us children with care. I feel that my father could do as he pleased because my mother was such a good person.
All four children were boys: from oldest to youngest, it was Todoroki, Kagayaki, Hibiki, and Hikari. They sound like names for cigarettes, but I think my father got them from the Chinese classics. Looking at these names again, each consisting of only one Chinese character, I can sense the expectations my father had of his children.
The youngest, Hikari, was adopted by my mother's parental home, but he died the first, and the third son Hibiki, who managed a brewery, died from atomic-bomb sickness this year. My two-year older brother is still alive and well, having worked as middle-school vice-principal, elementary-school principal, local superintendent of education, and prefectural human resource committee member and currently maintaining the family grave while serving as director of a company.
My father lived to 64 and my mother to 78, extremely long-lived for the time, and so the two of us who are still alive want to live as long as we can, also on behalf of our two younger brothers.
Kagayaki Miyazaki